


Necessary

by MythologyPastry



Category: I Claudius
Genre: Ancient Rome, Character Death, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Memories, Poisoning, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 16:58:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9772904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MythologyPastry/pseuds/MythologyPastry
Summary: The most painful memories of Livia Drusilla, Empress of Rome and consort to Emperor Augustus.





	

Livia looks upon him with a bittersweet fondness hitting her heart. Her husband is the most powerful man in the world, but he still won't give her what she wants. It's a selfish act, and she can't help but mock his name when she's alone. Despite their years of marriage, she has come to see him as weaker than herself. He doesn't deserve the temples, not without her legacy being recognized.

Augustus raises his head and smiles at her with such joy in his eyes. She stills, offering him some of her olives and berries. Their grandchildren run about, and Claudius splutters across the room, making a fool of himself as always.

Even though the wish comes to mind often, Livia cannot love him as he does her, and she hates him for it. Most importantly however is the thought of how Rome will never, can never, go back to its Republican ways. She has helped guide the way, and through her actions, she will until her end.

  
-

  
Eventually, Augustus eats his figs, and death comes for him soon after. He was right to worry, she muses, but even then, he couldn't outwit her. Emperor or not, he never could. He was clever, yes, but she played the game better than he, and so she lives to see Tiberius take the throne.

In a way, it's Rome's biggest mistake, biggest shame. She receives word of his actions in Capri, and she knows that her legacy will perhaps be forever tainted by her son's taboos. Livia thinks of her sons and grandchildren, how beautiful they all were before they came to understand the way of the world. Tears roll down her cheeks. Tiberius had truly loved Vipsania, but Livia helped ruin his ability to feel.

Those children deserved better than to have their innocence plucked away by a man with a frozen heart.

When she falls ill, he comes to Rome. She recovers, and he leaves, and she finds that the whole thing was rather pointless. There is no love between them, not anymore. She is a murderess, he a sadist, but they both judge each other for their faults.

Augustus would be disappointed, devastated. When she looks at the image of her son, she thinks of Julia, sent away for her own perversions. She thinks of the Spanish fly, of how charming the two were as children. Augustus' anger at the truth, his tears at night when Julia was finally gone. The family she once had was struck down by her own hand.

-

  
When she realizes that Claudius was never a fool, she comes to see him in some ways her equal. They both are deceptive, tricking the men around them into doing as the two of them wish. The only difference is that he does it to survive, and she does it to rule.

She begs him to make her a god, to have her deified. Her son would rather burn his precious island than give her more sway, and Caligula is mad, incapable of reason.

She dies in 29 AD, and her body is left to rot for days before finally being cremated. Tiberius refuses to honor her in death and vetoes what the Senate suggests. It isn't until the fall of her son and Caligula that Claudius, the poor boy she mocked throughout his life, saves her from suffering in Tartarus by finally deifying her and restoring all her honors.

She is remembered as a good woman, and that is the most bittersweet of all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it. This writing is based off of the 1976 BBC production, but it also takes parts from historical records of the family.


End file.
